Born in
Barnesville, Georgia, on November 2, 1926, Otis Jordan
was halfway between a human torso and an ossified man.
He suffered from arthrogryposis multiplex congenita (AMC),
a rare birth defect which causes permanent flexion of
the joints. This deformity of his arms and legs left
young Otis more or less helpless - at least physically.
What he lacked in mobility he made up for in brains, and
from an early age he understood the importance of
getting an education. One of his six normal siblings was
charged with carrying the handicapped boy to and from
school each day. When he was in the fifth grade,
however, Otis sought to alleviate this burden on his
family by devising his own means of transportation. He
designed a cart to be pulled by the family goat. From
day one Otis' parents were supportive of their disabled
son and taught him never to give up on doing the things
he wanted to do. With his father's help, Otis was able
to realize his goat cart design within a month. He
finished school with honors and later obtained a degree
by correspondence.

Though no longer dependent on
others to get around, Otis was still unable to make a
living on his own. He tried selling pencils, and later
newspapers, from his goat cart, but neither of these
businesses generated enough income. Then, in 1963, when
Otis and a friend went to the freak show at a local
fair, Otis decided to pay a visit to showman Dick
Burnett. He had become quite prolific at using his mouth
and two normal fingers to perform tasks, eventually
becoming a skilled appliance repairman. But it was his
ability to roll and light a cigarette using only his
mouth that sold Burnett on Otis as a performer.

Otis was nicknamed The Frog Boy
because of his permanently-bent legs. At first, Otis was
uncomfortable being the center of attention. He sat in
complete silence, performing his cigarette-rolling act
for curious audiences. However, Otis soon proved himself
a natural showman, giving his own inside lectures.
Footage from Ward Hall's 1991 documentary My Very
Unusual Friends shows just how skillful the Frog Boy
was at playing the crowd - he was not just a cigarette
roller but a sort of fire-eater as well, partially
swallowing and then retrieving his cigarette.

Otis' success as The Frog Boy
would continue until 1984, when politically-correct
backlash nearly left him without a job. A woman named
Barbara Baskin - Bogdan says she was handicapped herself
- saw Otis with Whitey Sutton's sideshow at the New York
State Fair, and was horrified. She went to court to get
the sideshow banned from the fair. Otis fought back,
vehemently defending his right to work - and won. In
1985 he travelled to Alton, Illinois, to speak in favor
of a proposed statue of Alton's most famous resident,
Robert Wadlow, the tallest man who ever lived. The
statue was erected despite a storm of protests from the
politically-correct faction, who did not want the
nine-foot-tall man categorized as a "freak". In 1987,
when Otis Jordan joined the Coney Island sideshow, he
was re-named the Human Cigarette Factory, and there he
spent three years delighting audiences with his dextrous
mouth and amiable personality. In 1990, while visiting
family in Georgia, he died from kidney disease.

"I can't understand it. How can
she say I'm being taken advantage of? Hell, what does
she want for me - to be on welfare?" - Otis Jordan on
Barbara Baskin, 1984 (Bogdan)

Text Elizabeth Anderson -
The Phreeque Show

The stock
"lecture" on Otis refereed to his condition as
"arrested development." Although this term probably
leaves a lot to be desired from a clinical
standpoint, I'll let it stand. Actually, Otis'
physical was the result of several things but,
unless you own a dictionary of medical jargon (and
understand it), "arrested development" will do just
fine. The only part of Otis' body that would pass
normal was his head. The rest of him was, as
previously mentioned about like a four year old
child in size. A paralyzed four year old with the
exception of the thumb and index finger of his right
hand. Everything above his shoulders worked and his
internal organs functioned properly. He had
developed the ability to propel his body in whatever
direction he desired by using his neck muscles,
thereby throwing his shoulders and the frozen
anatomy below them from side to side. This took a
great deal of effort but he would wobble himself
pretty well in this manner.

In a career that sp

anned
over twenty-five years, Otis appeared with a host of
sideshows owned by such operators as Elsie Sutton,
Jeff Murray, Dean Potter, Ward Hall and myself. Each
one of them has their own "Otis" stories to tell,
some funny, some poignant but all
with reverence for the fact their lives had been
touched by a very unique human being.

I, of course, have a
funny story regarding Mr. Jordan.

In his earlier
sideshow days, Otis was always "lectured on." The
inside lecturer (emcee for the sideshow vernacular
impaired), would introduce Otis, tell you why he was
called "The Frog Boy," (in case your imagination
wasn't up to making the quantum leap to make this
observation for yourself) and then do a
quasi-medical explanation of his condition. Some of
these "lectures" were pretty brutal, particularly
when the lecturer mangled medical terms, or worse
yet, invented new ones. When I first knew Otis, the
magician was also the lecturer. To be as charitable
as possible, he was a good magician. Each day, I
endured his Walter Brennan-style delivery of,
"Little Otis was born in a small town in Georgia of
normal parents." I often wondered how many people
went home and tried to locate Normal Parents in
their Rand McNally.

At any rate, the
lecture would wind up with brief question and answer
period.

"How old are you
Otis?'"

"Thirty-two."

"How tall are you?"

"Twenty-seven
inches."

After this
exhilarating exchange the lecturer would pitch Otis'
miniature bibles for fifty cents, the proceeds of
which, ostensibly, did everything from starving off
off-season hunger pangs to building a national
research center to cure frogboyitis.

There were human
oddities on the circuit that did their own lecture,
doubtless inspired into doing so to salvage whatever
dignity they could after being subjected to the
forgoing repartee.

Otis was terribly
"mike shy." When I began doing this lecture I tried
to expand on the little "man-on-the-street", segment
by tossing in questions that required more than a
monosyllabic answer. I'd either get a terrified look
or an inaudible grunt in return. It appeared that
the audio portion of the Otis Jordan show was always
going to remain at "thirty-two" and "twenty-seven"
inches.

Then came a
sweltering hot night in New Britain, Connecticut. It
was Otis' first year of employment with me and I'd
managed to buy him a nice little trailer that had
everything except an air conditioner. We closed the
show at around midnight and it was still about 85
degrees. I'd just finished dropping the banners and
walked back into the tent, prepared to carry Otis to
his trailer.

It was a
rubble-strewn urban lot and we'd already had
problems with neighborhood gangs. I knew Otis could
handle his Pirates of Penzance-looking gun pretty
well, but I was uneasy about leaving him alone in
the tent. He was, however, not about to give up the
idea of "camping out." Reluctantly, I trudged off to
my own humid trailer.

My wife and I had
almost fallen asleep when she nudged me awaked with
a hushed, "Did you hear that?"

Whatever "that" was,
I didn't hear it.

"Shh-," she
whispered, "listen."

It was kind of
electronic buzzy sound interspersed with a faint
voice.

"Somebody's tv.," I
said.

"Light plant's off,"
she countered.

"Somebody's battery
tv."

"Get up and check,"
she said ignoring my comedic efforts.

I opened the trailer
door and listened. The sound was coming from inside
the tent. Drawing myself up to my not particularly
imposing five foot eight inches, I lifted the
sidewall, expecting to find Otis holding a group of
things at bay with his comic opera pistol.

Oblivious to my
sidewall entrance, Otis continued to croon into the
mike. "Ain't nobody here but us chickens."

"A star is born!" I
announced from the shadows.

"Didn't think you
could hear me," said Mr. Jordan with a
kid-with-his-hand-in-the-cookie-jar grin.

The next day Otis
began lecturing on himself.

Otis' final years of
sideshow performing were spent in Coney Island in
the employ of John Bradshaw and Dick Zigun.

Here Otis appeared as
the "Human Cigarette Factory" rather than "The Frog
Boy." The age of political correctness was now, upon
us. Other than the new title, nothing changed in his
presentation.

Many physically
handicapped sideshow acts performed some feat or
another to illustrate how they'd overcome their
particular disability. Armless people would, for
example, draw, typewrite, or knit using their feet.
In Otis' case he'd roll and light a cigarette and
then puff smoke rings and make it disappear and
appear-"sleight of mouth as I referred to it. Hence
the new "Human Cigarette Factory" title.

Ironically, if Otis
was still alive today he'd be out of business with
that title, as cigarette smoking has been added to
freak gawking by the tongue-clucking set.

A new title for Otis?
Well, I'd probably lock horns with the legal folks
at Reader's Digest, but my vote would have to go to,
"The Most Unforgettable Person I've Ever Met." It'd
be the most factual title I ever painted on a
banner.